Posted on Facebook 11 October 2013 by Merle Brown

My dad, Graham Jarvis, sailed with the Union Castle Line from 1950 – 1955. He was an engineer and served on the Pretoria, LLanstephan (including the final journey), Drakensberg, Edinburgh, Arundel and Rhodesia Castles.

We met for coffee this morning and I showed him some of the photos from the recent group posts and he was deeply moved. Two hours and quite a few stories later, we parted with my urging him to write down his memories of that time.

I heard stories involving George Tuck, Percy Partington and Velocity Jones (great name!) as well as a near disaster involving sea water getting into something it shouldn’t – sorry, I can’t remember what it was - he got very technical at this point but he talked of boilers, generators, coils, psi, funnels and so on . . . Here’s a photo of my dad.

Graham Jarvis and K Pothecary aboard Drakensberg Castle

Going ashore in Durban from Drakensberg Castle in 1952.

From left: G Jarvis (Snr 3rd Eng), J McSherry (Int 3rd Eng), H Thornton (Snr 2nd Eng), J Derrigan (Int 2nd Eng), S German (Jnr 2nd Eng), C Heasman (Electrician), K Pothecary (4th Eng).

With Rickshaws in Durban in 1952

From left: J McSherry, K Pothecary and Graham.

Graham and Jimmy ashore in Port Elizabeth in 1952

(Can anyone identify “Jimmy”)

2013 Doing what comes naturally

Service Record

From

To

Pretoria Castle

Jnr Engineer

1950


Llanstephan Castle

Jnr Engineer

1951

3/1952

Drakensberg Castle

Jnr Engineer

1952


Edinburgh Castle

Jnr Engineer



Arundel Castle

Jnr Engineer



Rhodesia Castle

Jnr Engineer


1955

Graham ashore from Llanstephan Castle in Zanzibar, Sept 1951

Graham Jarvis

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